/A 
PREFATORY 
ON DEPOSIT 
FROM 
THE LIBRARY 
PARLIAMENT OF VICTOR 
NOT l 
During the progress of an extended and systematic survey like that which 
is now being carried out by the Geological Survey of India, it necessarily 
happens that information is obtained regarding districts, or minerals, or fossils, 
which, though imperfect, is still of much value, and which forms a link in the 
chain of evidence tending to establish the age or character of the several groups 
of rocks or formations in this country. It has hitherto been impossible to give 
these isolated facts publicity, as it would obviously be inconsistent with the 
scheme of the < Memoirs of the Geological Survey of India’ to publish in them 
detached facts, or minor sketches, only in anticipation of the more finished and 
detailed descriptions which it would be practicable to give a little later. In 
several cases, however, to wait for this more full and complete description 
would be tantamount to waiting for many years. The area of the Indian 
Empire is so immense, the staff of the survey so limited, that the detailed work 
of each successive season makes but a very small inroad on the country yet 
mi visited; while the almost total ignorance of the geological structure of India 
under which we suffered until within the last few years made it both difficult 
to anticipate the importance of such isolated observations and impossible to 
attempt to reduce them to any general system. 
The conditions of the case, however, appear to me now to have undergone 
sufficient alteration to justify, and even to demand, a more rapid publication of 
such facts, though they may be isolated and imperfect. There are also many 
other matters, essentially forming a portion of the labors and ol the progress 
of the survey, of which the public may fairly, as I think, expect a knowledge 
up to the latest practicable date. 
It is therefore contemplated to issue independently of the “ Memoirs of the 
Geological Survey of India,” and of the " Pakeontologia Indica,” a separate 
series which shall bear to these Memoirs somewhat the same relation which in. 
learned societies, the * Proceedings,’ ‘ Sitzungsberiehte, ‘ Monatsberiehte, 
‘ Bulletins,’ &c., do to the larger and more important ‘ Transactions,’ ‘ Memoirs,’ 
' Abhandlungen’ ‘ Denkschriften,’ &c. This series will contain a notice of the 
current work of the survey up to date ; a list of contributions to the Museum or 
Library ; a list, and occasionally an analysis, of such books published elsewhere 
w 
